


Per Semitas Tempus

by viceandvirtue



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alive Sirius Black, American Wizarding History c. 1748, Book Five Non-Canon Compliant, British Wizarding History c. 1748, Canon...what canon?, F/M, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix AU, How do you tag this even?, M/M, Mind Swap...sort of, Mother Magic is not happy with her children, Narcissa is not a Malfoy, Politics, Resurrected Regulus Black, Time Travel, Unwilling Body Possession (not as creepy as it sounds), Wizarding Politics, or a lot depending on your point of view, she decides to change things up a bit, short interconnected chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-09 07:58:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13477110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceandvirtue/pseuds/viceandvirtue
Summary: Mother Magic looks upon her people, finds herself displeased, and changes things. Seven people find themselves in the past in bodies that are not theirs. General chaos and suspicions ensue as they try and find their way back before they irrevocably change history.





	1. Prologue

Mother Magic does not like the way her children have begun to forget her, despite their constant calls upon her power and the gifts she so often gives them. So she's going to...change the story a little bit. 

Two high societies, forty of the oldest, wealthiest families in the world, and when everything is a stage set to be laid before the public, what else are the people who belong to these families but actors in a performance of their own design?

The sudden newcomers to this familiar but completely different world are going to have to learn a thing or two about survival - even those who thought they knew what it meant to be at the top of the hierarchy.


	2. Draco: Waking Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 1/7 for “Waking Up” or in which Draco Malfoy wakes up in someone else’s body and meets his cousin.

The sight of vaulted ceilings and elaborate Roman-era crown-mouldings was not what immediately set off the alarm bells in fifteen year old Draco Malfoy's head as he woke up. It wasn't the feel of the heavy, warm sheets or the thick down blanket across his chest - it was winter with Yule just around the corner, such a thing was not out of place. It might not have been any of these things, but the lack of sound from outside the room most certainly did alert him to something not quite right. With the exception of himself, his mother and father were chronic early-risers, never one to waste a minute in a day if they could be doing something productive.

So why didn't he hear the swish of his mother's skirts and robes, the echoing of his father's strident footsteps off the marble that so adorned the hallway floors? Even the usually aggravating crack of a house-elf apparating would have been preferable to the eerie silence of outside the room.

Pushing the down blanket away from his body he swung his feet over the edge of the bed and let his eyes - narrowed against the sun rising through the gauzy curtains - survey the room. There were a few things out of place and quite a few unrecognisable objects, though the Slytherin colours brought him a small degree of comfort in this strange situation.

His feet hitting the floor set off another alarm bell. All of the bedrooms were black hardwood, and besides the small rug that sat at the end of his bed to ensure that his trunk didn't damage the polished floors, there was no carpeting or anything of the sort. So why were his feet sinking into finely made furs?

Before he could contemplate this frankly bizarre situation any further, a knock came at the door and it opened far enough to allow a figure to pass through before it closed just as silently as it had opened.

"Cousin," the young man in front of him says, sounding slightly surprised. "You're up. I was under the impression that you were still ill."

Ill? When had he gotten sick? And a cousin? He didn't remember having any older cousins that would have referred to him so familiarly, nor any that resembled the young man in front of him.

Indeed, his supposed cousin, stood over him by at least a head and a half with white-blond hair that dusted his shoulders. He leaned more on the side of broad-shouldered, but was still lean and the sharp angles of his face spoke of aristocracy. His eyes were heterochromatic, slate grey in the right and emerald green in the left like he'd never seen before.

(‘ _Aurelio_ ,’ some part of his mind whispered, a belated thing and that stunned Draco into further silence, despite the fact that, in this context the name meant nothing to him.)

"Praetorian?"

Draco couldn’t help it. He faltered.

_What?_


	3. Harry: Waking Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2/7 in 'Waking Up' or in which Harry wakes up, and finds his world is turned on its head. Cue confusion from all parties involved.

It wasn't the first time Harry had woken up to a noisy house (the Weasleys were plenty loud most mornings). But the shrieking laughter was in a different tone than the twins' cackling laugh or and the chatter was vastly off from Mrs Weasley's shrill admonitions of frustration or Mr Weasley's excited rambling. But it was the silence within the room that startled him, made him wary and put him on high-alert. (And he loved Hermione like the sister he never had, but she didn't always understand that just because he didn't let the things he noticed  _show_ , didn't mean he didn't notice them  _at all_.)

The sound of a skirt shifting caught his attention and his brain latched onto the sound with a single-minded ferocity and it was then that he noticed other things. There was a slim hand at his forehead, fingers pressing a cold cloth to his face as if to wick away sweat and aid in a breaking fever. But that...that didn't make sense. He wasn't sick, hadn't been sick last night. 

Finally, he managed to pry open his eyes and closed them only seconds after while the woman above him (and she was  _very_ pretty) made a concerned sound in the back of her throat and carded her fingers through his hair, scratching at his scalp absently. He opened his eyes again, going much slower this time so that he had time to adjust to the early morning light streaming through the windows. 

The woman shifts again and then she's leaning over him, a curtain of black hair masking the light. 

Harry blinks up in confusion for a minute, unsure of what is going on or where he is before he’s shifting, trying to move only to find that his limbs are heavy and don’t want to cooperate.

There's an insistent feeling in his chest, settling right behind his ribs that gives him a sense of familiarity, of love, and of  _safety_ in a way he hasn't felt in a long time. 

There's a knock on the door and someone pops in that he can't see around the woman's shoulders.

" _Lady_   _Rosalyn_?" It's a young woman's voice, but not one that's familiar. It's cultured in a way that he hasn't heard since the delegates of Beauxbatons left Hogwarts after the Tournament for the Cup. 

“Margot,” the woman above him, Rosalyn, says gently. “He’ll be fine,” she continues, answering an unspoken question. “His fever broke a few hours ago. You can go.”

”As you say, Lady Rosalyn,” Margot responds before the door shuts again.

Rosalyn sighs above him before she stands and moves. Harry, through half-lidded eyes tracks her movements to the armoire.

”I know you’re awake, Caspian,” she says, and her voice is still kind but it’s cool, the same kind of tone he’s heard the Minister use when speaking to his educated, intellectual equals.

Harry doesn’t have an answer for that, can only shift until he’s propped up on his elbows, and finds the room crystal clear.

He’ll die of mortification before he admits that he chokes on his spit when the room is crystal clear in a way it was even with his glasses.

He’s a little too in shock and distracted by his clarity of vision that he doesn’t answer Rosalyn for several minutes. 

He doesn’t exactly have an answer for her anyway.


	4. Regulus: Waking Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 3/7 of 'Waking Up', or in which Regulus comes back from the dead and finds that the world has changed.

Sinking, drowning, pain. _Dragged down by icy, clammy hands that hold no love for him, no love for anyone except for the ability to drag people to the bottom. Last thoughts? Sirius, I'm sorry._

Regulus Arcturus Black comes back to life gasping for air and gagging to expel water that's no longer in his lungs.

His eyes snap open to face the ceiling before he's leaning over the edge of the bed, feeling that deep-seated ache in his chest as he dry-heaves. Only distantly does he recognise the  _crack-of-a-whip_ sound that marks a house-elf or the hurried steps of a young man walking toward him.

"It be Master Alexander, Mister Robert," the house elf reports dutifully, though his tone suggests a level of contempt. "Master Alexander be very sick, methinks."

_Kreacher_.

Though he wants to call out to his favourite elf, he can't get the words past the water-like-iron clogging his throat. But he _knows_ there’s something not right about this. The words are wrong, the accents off. But what that means...his brain is still too fuzzy to make the connection.

"Thank you, Kreacher," a young man's voice says. "Fetch me a cloth soaked in water, will you?"

"As you say, Mister Robert."

Regulus tries to pry his eyes open but his fever pulls him back down into unconsciousness before he can even think about forming syllables.

At least there’s a still-beating heart in his chest.


End file.
